WORLD WAR II was the largest and costliest war in human history The deaths directly and indirectly caused by the war may have reached 60 million: the war. or more properly the wars fought between 1939 and 1945 involved literally the entire globc. At its peak more than 50 million men and women were serving in the armed senices; two-thirds of the national product of the major combatants was devoted to waging war.War was the product not only of a profound disequilibrium in world attairs; it reflected deep hatreds and powerful imperial ambitions inherited from the Great War of 1914-18, where lay the seeds of the second, and larger contlict.

The attempt to produce a stable world order in 1919 was undermined from the start. In East Asia, China collapsed politically and Japan slowly expanded at Chinese expense. In the Mediterranean and Middle East, the end of Ottoman rule provoked a nationalist Italy under Mussolini to carve out a new "Roman Empire".

IT IS ARGUABLY THE single greatest event in human history. Decades on from when the last shot was fired, the battles may be fading from living memory, but the shock

waves of World War II still resonate.

This comprehensive history examines not just the many theatres of operations, but also provides a challenging analysis   of the war's causes and momentous  consequences as well as relating the  human story of a conflict that cost the lives of an estimated 50 million people.

World War I evokes the sheer epic scale of combat, ranging from the battlefronts in Europe, Africa, Russia, and the Pacific to its appalling impact on civilian populations across the globe.

First-hand accounts from combatants and civilians blend with compelling images  and unique graphics and timelines to create a truly complete picture of the war. Forty full-colour digital maps reveal the strategic and tactical situations faced by the commanders on both sides, while the descriptions of the fighting itself propel the reader into the terrible realities of battle. Stalingrad, Normandy, Guadalcanal, Pearl Harbor, E1 Alamein,Kursk war on land, sea,and air in all its brutal intensity.Accompanying DK's groundbreaking First World War, this is an essential chronicle of the conflict that defined our world.

THE PATH TO WAR

        Post-War Europe 

      Japanese Imperialism 

    Rearmament and Expansion 

   WAR BEGINS IN EUROPE 36

           1939-40

        First Conquests 

    German Invasion of the West 

        Britain in Peril 

  The Home Front in Western Europe 

  GERMANY TRIUMPHANT 

           1940-41

       The War at Sea 

Campaigns in Ali'ica and the Middle East 

      The Balkan Calnpaign

      Operation Barbarossa

THE WAR BECOME GLOBAL 104

           1941 42

     The USA Joins the War

      Japanese Onslaught

The Home Front in the USA and Japan

       Wartime Cinema

    From Moscow to Stalingrad

THE INITIATIVE CHANGES HANDS

           1942-43

Changing Fortunes on the Eastern Front

       The Holocaust

  The Axis Defeated in North Atiica

The U-boat Campaign in the Atlantic

   The Pacitic War in the Balance

  THE AXIS ON THE DEFENSIVE  180

           1943-44

Recapture of the Western Soviet Union 

      The Invasion of Italy 

        War in the Air 

  American Offensives in the Pacific 

THE ALLIES' GREAT OFFENSIVES 214

           1944 45

   Advance into Northwest Europe 

       Balkan Resistance 

      Advance into Poland 

      Japan Near the Brink 

    THE FINAL BATTLES 

             1945

      The Road To Berlin 

      The End of the Reich 

       Japan Surrenders 

      A NEW WORLD 

            1945-49

      The Legacy of War 

          Glossary 

           Index 

       Acknowleduements